Lemon Pound Cake

I have become quite fond of lemon pound cake at my nearby Borders cafe, some may even say dependent upon it. I have been having outings with Washing Silver recently, and at each of them I have had a slice of lemon pound cake, along with a varying beverage. Today it was lemon pound cake with an orange Italian soda. Revisions of Washing Silver are moving slowly. Actually, they're just plain moving backward. I am in the "cut out what doesn't belong" step, and I have discovered the following along the way:

• I like the basic story, still, but I do think some fairly major things need to change or be rearranged.
  
• Writing a complete story arc in three weeks requires that you skim over a lot of things.
  
• My characters are acting in a vacuum, and I desperately need to give them some scenery and props.
  

I'm sure I have learned other things as well, but the only other thing that popped into my head was the fact that some days I have more confidence in my ability to put this "book" into a workable form than others. That didn't seem like an appropriate bullet-point, especially since today was something of a doubting day. Today's twenty pages were looked at in honor of Cari, who finished the second draft of her novel earlier this week.

The other reason I looked at the manuscript today is that I didn't look at it over the weekend at all. I was too busy finishing Big Sack. It's growing on me. I'll try to remember to have Ebbie take a picture of me in it tomorrow.

It's about four inches longer than I'd really like, and I did something wonky with the sleeve seams, but it looks like a sweater, and it does fit me. I was thinking about redoing the sleeve seams, but I am afraid of accidentally cutting the wrong strand of yarn and doing something VERY BAD to the sweater. I almost said "unravelling", but that would not be a problem. The yarn ended up being more hairy than I'd expected it to be, which ended up being an issue when I realized that the turtleneck I had done was hideous and made me look like a bullfrog in mid-call. Ripping was an adventure because the stitches had bonded very nicely in the scant few hours in which they'd known one another.

There will be no more ripping of this sweater. It is my first sweater, I have learned from it and had the fact that I should not wear overly baggy sweaters often reinforced by it. But it will stay in the form it is now and get worn from time to time because it is my first sweater.

I will start Klaralund next (paying closer attention to gauge), but not until I finish my poor mother's second sock and cast on for my father's first sock. Yes, I am aware that I managed to finish an entire oversized sweater before I finished a pair of socks, I am also aware that this makes me pathetic as a knitter. My only recourse is to blame the 10" orange aluminum dpns I'm using for the socks. I find them intimidating and slightly dangerous (the thought of possibly putting an eye out occurs to me when I use them).

I am going to call it a night. We're having a nice, soft rain that will, hopefully, help me fall asleep quickly. I've been enjoying the lovely weather we've been having, and haven't even minded the frequent periods of rain too much (because if it's raining, it's too warm to snow).

Enjoy your evenings.